This big three will be the biggest car markets in the world in 2020

The Big Three, in car circles, has always been General Motors, Ford and Chrysler but there’s another big three to consider: China, the United States and India. By 2020, they will represent the three largest auto markets in the world.

According to J.D. Power and Associates, India is moving fast when it comes to cars. More than 2.7 million vehicles were sold in that country in 2010. That’s up from 700,000 in 2000. Remember that the average number of vehicles sold in the United States in 2000 was around 16 million.

But jumping ahead to 2020, J.D. Power expects 11 million vehicles to be sold in India. The big leader in 2020, of course, is expected to be China with 35 million sold while U.S. sales are expected to reach 17.4 million in 2020.

But India represents a different market when it comes to vehicles, different from China and the United States. In 2010, nearly 80 percent of all new passenger vehicles sold in India were classified as either mini cars or subcompact passenger cars. The mini-car and subcompact segment accounted for 24 percent of 2010 sales in China and just 3 percent of U.S. vehicles sold that year.

The Chinese numbers would indicate that the car companies that crack that Asian market will be the sales leaders of tomorrow.

Author: Steve Tarter

Born in England, raised in Boston, I'm a Midwestern transplant who's called Peoria home for the past 40 years. Married with four grown children, I enjoy journalism, film noir and radio drama. As the song goes, I like coffee; I like tea. Former president of the Apollo Theater in Downtown Peoria, I'm looking for a new raison d'etre.
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